A Little Bit of Heresy

You know something's changed when you always seem to be recharging your Garmin.

At first I thought my battery might be dying, but then when I considered that my weekday runs have doubled in length and my Saturday runs are up by 1/3, I began to suspect otherwise. I wasn't sure I could safely get up to 40 miles a week, but here I am. I'm doing early-morning 8-milers on autopilot, then going into work full of energy. Last Saturday I did 17 and somehow managed 8:43 and 8:22 on the last two, despite real fatigue and a 7-miler the day before. A decent Marshall Marathon is seeming more and more like a real possibility. So of course you're thinking, "All you need now is that magical 20-miler, right, AB?"

Wrong. Not gonna happen. Wouldn't be prudent.

Yes, I know. But I have a real problem with 20-milers, and it dates back (as so many things do) to my youth. I've done exactly two 20-mile workouts in my life, and regretted both of them. The first came just a week or so into track season my junior year in high school. I had trained as if my life depended on it all through the winter, including many two-a-days, in the hope of breaking 10 minutes in my event, the 2-mile. In our opening meet I threw a surge at the field on the sixth lap and won easily in a PR 9:58. Life was full of possibilities. It was only a matter of time until I threatened 9:50. Except that the following week some former teammates, now running on college teams, talked some of us into a 20-mile fun run. It wasn't much fun. The last few miles were agonizing, and I felt as if I never recovered for the rest of track season. I still won some races, but never got below that 9:58 until the following year.

Then in the summer, one of those same teammates talked me into another 20-miler. He had no one else to run with, and bribed me by offering to buy me breakfast afterward. Since one of my cardinal rules in life is "Never turn down free food," and since it was summer and there were no races looming, I gave in. It was horrible. At the end I wasn't even hungry for that free breakfast.

It's not as if I was a stranger to high mileage. In those bygone days, I ran 70-mile weeks routinely in the off-season. And I finished three marathons in respectable times, though I hit "the wall" hard in each one of them. But 20 miles in a workout seemed to take more out of me than it gave back in stamina, strength, confidence or willpower. Was I just a hopeless wuss? Fortunately, the Hanson Brothers came to my rescue.

In their marathon training book, the Hansons argue that the magical 20-mile training run is mythical and arbitrary and based mainly on the fact that 20 is a nice, round number. Now I've seen other arguments that 20 miles is important because that's when glycogen stores run out. But the Hansons claim--as I seemed to find out on my own years ago--that anything beyond 16 miles wears you down to a point that makes it too hard to recover for your next runs. The Hansons put a lot of stock in running on tired legs, but with high mileage that's spread out a little more--kind of like what I did before that junior track season. Now I'm not exactly following their plan because, let's face it: I'm too dang old. But by following the general spirit of it, I've gotten stronger and surprised myself in the process.

So what's my upper limit? Is 16 the new 20? Not exactly, as you found out in the second paragraph. I know that many Loopsters have gained confidence from their 20-milers, and I think each runner should do what's best for him. So after the usual round of Tarot cards, palm-reading and coin-flipping, I came to the scientific conclusion that 18 miles would be my pre-Marshall maximum. Hopefully, that will be enough to boost my confidence without breaking me to the point of no return, and it'll happen a week from Saturday. In the meantime, Running Buddy Mark and I will be trying out my marathon goal pace in five days at the Long Beach Pikermi. That should help me determine if 8:22 is going to be too hot to handle in West Virginia. And to be completely honest: yeah, I'm nervous about Marshall. I don't know if any of this is going to work, but I'm betting that there's a football with my name on it a hundred yards from that goal line.

No heresy... everybody's different! And my goodness, I can't wait to watch/cheer/spectate/SCREAM you into the finish at Marshall. You're going to smash it!

I LOVED my 18 miler, and felt like I could have gone a couple more miles. I think it's a great distance to top out at. But to soothe my mental sickness of being terrified of new things I haven't yet tried, I'm going to be pushing it with a 21-22 miler.

At this point you appear to be so strong that I have no doubt you'll pull it off!

I kind of have come to a tentative conclusion (or at least agreeing with what others say) that while the long run is important it's really the other workouts during the week that can be critical. 18 miles should be good enough with everything else.

My marathon is coming up and I've done 16 milers but nothing further -- I believe in the training. I think I've "drank the Hanson kool-aide", even though I didn't follow it to a T, I believe it works. Or else I will be eating my words in about 11 days!

In my very first marathon, around mile 16 I ran with a very seasoned veteran who knew his race stuff. He told me he hadn't done ANY 20 milers this training session, I am pretty sure I looked "aghast" at that, living by the 20 miles or die rule. Now that I'm a convert, I've realized that there ARE ways around doing them. Also, he finished in around 4 hours.

My marathon is coming up and I've done 16 milers but nothing further -- I believe in the training. I think I've "drank the Hanson kool-aide", even though I didn't follow it to a T, I believe it works. Or else I will be eating my words in about 11 days!

In my very first marathon, around mile 16 I ran with a very seasoned veteran who knew his race stuff. He told me he hadn't done ANY 20 milers this training session, I am pretty sure I looked "aghast" at that, living by the 20 miles or die rule. Now that I'm a convert, I've realized that there ARE ways around doing them. Also, he finished in around 4 hours.

These are reassuring words. Now I'm really eager to see how you do in 11 days, because it could be a sneak preview of my own race. Good luck!

I kind of have come to a tentative conclusion (or at least agreeing with what others say) that while the long run is important it's really the other workouts during the week that can be critical. 18 miles should be good enough with everything else.

Yeah, it's funny, but I think running 8 miles instead of 4 three days a week may be making more of a difference in the (no pun intended) long run.

This is such a coincidence that you posted this! I'm supposed to do a 20 miler this weekend bf Marshall and I keep going back and forth whether I should do it. I'm think that 15 or 16 might be better, but I can't decide if I'm just being my lazy self lazy (probably true, a lot true) or smart,

I wouldn't presume to make decisions for you, because everyone's different. I just wanted to reinforce the idea that 20 might not be an absolute must. I hope your decision--whatever it is--works for you!

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